■ 455 
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A Review 

By SAMUEL M. WILSON 



OF 



*'Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission" 

By Dr. Archibald Henderson 



A Review 



By SAMUEL M. WILSON 



OF 



"Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission" 

By Dr, Archibald Henderson 



Exitus acta probat 



Lexington, Kentucky 
1920 






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• 1 






•■V 



REVIEW 

By SAMUEL M. WILSON 
OF 

An article, by Dr. Archibald Henderson, entitled "Isaac 
Shelby and the Genet Mission," published, first, in two chap- 
ters, in a volume by Dr. Henderson, entitled "The Star of 
Empire," and, later, as the leading article in No. 4, of Vol. VI, 
of the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, for March, 1920, 
pages 451-469. 



"To the historian, destitute of facts for his text, silence 
supercedes commentary." — Humphrey Marshall, Hist, of 
Ky., 1812 Ed., page 9. 



The chief fault the writer has to find with the article in 
question is with certain of its comments and conclusions or 
characterizations, and not with those facts narrated, which 
are based upon indisputable records. The quotation extracted 
from Marshall's History of Kentucky (Edition of 1812) bears 
more directly upon the errors and omissions of Marshall him- 
self, which appear to have unconsciously influenced the author 
of the paper styled, "Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission." 
These errors might have been avoided by Marshall and their 
effect on later historians, beginning with Timothy Pitkin, in 
1828, and ending, let us say, with Roosevelt, Winsor, Mc- 
Elroy and Dr. Henderson, might have been minimized, if 
Marshall had adhered more scrupulously to the principle 
enunciated by him so tersely and so oracularly in the sentence 
quoted above. It was Macaulay, I believe, who long ago 
ventured the observation that egotism which is so offensive a 
fault in conversation, is oftentimes an alluring quality in 
written composition, and assuredly Humphrey Marshall's 
haughty self-assurance in his histories is responsible for much 
of the weight which those histories have had with later writers. 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

By this I do not mean to deny that he is often picturesque, 
sometimes brilliant, and, nearly always, forceful and readable. 
But his facts were not always fairly or fully presented and his 
conclusions were too frequently warped and colored by his 
intense prejudices. 

The paper here under consideration is, in my opinion, sub- 
ject to criticism in that it does not reveal a very marked ad- 
vance over the effort of such a writer, for example, as Dr. 
Robert McNutt McElroy, in the chapter entitled, "One Phase 
of the Genet Mission," published as Chapter VI, of his book, 
"Kentucky in the Nation's History." 

Comparing this article by Dr. Henderson, as it first ap- 
peared in the book, "The Star of Empire," with its later form 
as it appeared in the Mississippi Valley Historical Review, one 
is led to surmise that McElroy may have influenced the changes 
or modifications which slightly differentiate the second version 
from the first version of this paper. However this may be, it 
is to be regretted that Dr. Henderson did not seize the oppor- 
tunity presented to show how deficient is the narrative and 
how unjust and ill-founded are some of the comments which 
disfigure the work of McElroy. The case for Isaac Shelby 
might have been materially strengthened in the revised article 
but, instead of that, the case appears to be accentuated against 
him. 

It is plainly evident that neither Dr. McElroy nor Dr. 
Henderson made any use of Michaux's Journal, a translation 
of which is found in Vol. Ill of Thwaite's "Early Western 
Travels," published in 1903, nor of the "Clark and Genet 
Correspondence," as published in the Report of the Historical 
Manuscripts Commission, of the American Historical Asso- 
ciation in its Annual Report for 1896. McElroy (p. 169, note 
2, and p. 170, notes 1 and 3), cites Michaux's Instructions and 
the Correspondence of the French Ministers of the United 
States, 1791-1797, published in 1903, in the Seventh Report of 
the Historical Mss. Com., of the American Historical Associa- 
tion, Vol. II (all in French and part of which had been pre- 
viously published in 1896) , but he seems to have been oblivious 
of the important matter contained in the Report published in 

4 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

1896, and of other important source materials which could 
have been found with the slightest diligence. He pays not the 
slightest attention to "The Mangourit Correspondence in 
Respect to Genet's Attack upon the Floridas, 1793-94," edited 
by Frederick J, Turner, and published by the American His- 
torical Association, in its report for 1897, pp. 290, 569-679, nor 
to the pamphlet, privately printed in 1899, by George Clinton 
Genet, entitled "Washington, Jefferson and Citizen Genet, 
1793," nor to the valuable article by Frederick J. Turner, 
entitled "The Origin of Genet's Projected Attack on Louisiana 
and the Floridas," published in 1898, in No. 4 of Vol. Ill of 
the American Hist. Review, pp. 490-650, nor to C. DeWitt's 
Life of Thomas Jefferson, published in Paris in 1861, nor to a 
lot of other interesting authorities, which have been ignored or 
thrown into the discard. McElroy cites Butler's History of 
Kentucky, 2d Ed. of 1836, in his Bibliography, but he mani- 
fests very little acquaintance with it. His citations of Butler 
appear to refer to the 1st Edition of 1834, which, on this par- 
ticular subject, is not so satisfactory as the 1836 edition. Use 
is made by Dr. Henderson of a portion of the valuable docu- 
ments published as Appendices to Butler's History of Ken- 
tucky, 2d Ed., but little or no account has, apparently, been 
taken of Butler's text, dealing with the same subject. (See, 
particularly, pp. 222-235.) The following sentence from Butler 
(p. 227) will illustrate the studied unfairness of Shelby's polit- 
ical adversary, Humphrey Marshall: "These (views) histor- 
ical justice, no less than the author's deep respect for the great 
public services of Governor Shelby, impels him to record. He 
is more eager to do this, because this defense, though in part 
produced by a motion of Mr. H. Marshall, is totally omitted 
by him in his History." (Marshall had introduced the Reso- 
lution of November 12, 1794, in the Ky. Legislative Session of 
November, 1794, which called forth the Governor's message of 
the 15th November, 1794, to the House of Representatives of 
Kentucky.) 

The Clark and Genet Correspondence (Am. Hist. Assoc. 
Report, 1896), was collected and edited by the Historical 
Manuscripts Commission of the American Historical Associa- 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

tion, and that Commission was composed of four leading his- 
torians of the country, two of whom were J. Franklin Jameson 
and Frederick J. Turner. It is fairly evident that the actual 
work was done by Frederick J. Turner. In his Introduction to 
the correspondence, Turner (at page 934) uses this language: 
"These documents seem to support Shelby's explanation." 
This is in accord with the conclusions reached by Mann Butler, 
sixty years before, and is the conclusion which most commends 
itself to the impartial investigator today. 

The Correspondence of Clark and Genet tends to show that 
the idea of an armed expedition down the Mississippi against 
the Spanish possessions did not originate with Genet but with 
those who sent Genet to America and with George Rogers 
Clark himself, who, as early as February 2 and February 5, 
1793, was addressing letters on the subject to the "French Min- 
ister" to the United States. McElroy, in a casual sort of way 
(p. 170) , alludes to this possibility, saying, "It seems probable 
that Clark suggested the whole scheme, and that Jefferson, the 
Secretary of State, deliberately encouraged it." He, neverthe- 
less, exerts himself to "whitewash" Clark, with all the zeal of 
a special pleader. However this may be, it is plain that Clark 
was keen for the adventure, just as he had, in former years, 
been avid for employment by Spain, and lent himself to the 
reciprocal overtures of Genet, Michaux and other emissaries 
of the French with the utmost readiness and willingness. 

After Genet and Clark, the central figure in the affair was 
no less a person than Thomas Jefferson, at that time Secretary 
of State of the United States. Alexander Johnston, the able 
expounder of American History, who, until his untimely death, 
occupied the chair of History at Princeton University, has 
said: 

"The most ambiguous position in regard to the whole 
affair of Genet and his mission is that of Jefferson." 
(Lalor's Cyc. of Political Science.) 

Von Hoist, in his Constitutional and Political History of the 
United States, Vol. I, p. 116, says that Jefferson so far hindered 
the action of the government as to justify the charge that "he 

6 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

played a masked part, and valued the friendship of France 
more than the honor of his own country." Based upon Genet's 
dispatch of July 25, 1793, to the French Minister for Foreign 
Affairs, Von Hoist charges that Jefferson "indirectly, but with 
a knowledge of Genet's plan, advocated that an uprising against 
Spanish rule in Louisiana, with the aid of the Kentuckians, 
should be provoked." Genet had written home: 

"Mr. Jefferson me parut sentir vivement I'utilite de ce 
projet; * * * cependant il me fit entendre qu'il pensait 
qu'une petite irruption spontanee des habitans de Ken- 
tukey dans la Nouvelle-Orleans pouvait avancer les 
choses; il me mit en relation avec plusieurs deputes du 
Kentukey, et notamment avec Mr. Brown." 

In spite of all this, it is only fair to say that Johnston 
endeavors to exonerate Jefferson, and as an admirer of Jeffer- 
son, I have no quarrel with his vindication. The sense of 
nationality was as yet but embryonic not only with John 
Brown, John Breckinridge, Isaac Shelby, and others of Ken- 
tucky, but with George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Henry 
Lee, and others of Virginia, as will be more distinctly shown 
before this review is ended. Respecting Washington's Proc- 
lamation of 'Neutrality,' of April 22, 1793, (which nowhere 
uses the word "neutrality"), James Madison wrote to Jeffer- 
son, under date of June 19, 1793: "The proclamation was in 
truth a most unfortunate error. It wounds the national honor, 
by seeming to disregard the stipulated duties to France. It 
wounds the popular feelings by a seeming indifference to the 
cause of liberty." (Rives, Life and Times of James Madison, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 334-335.) (See, also, the letters, signed 'Hel- 
vidius,' written by Madison, in answer to a series of letters by 
Hamilton, signed 'Pacificus.') 

Let me pause here to say that Genet, at heart, was not a 
bad man. It is established by documentary evidence, says Von 
Hoist (Vol. I, p. 117, note 2), "that Genet received express in- 
structions to involve the United States in the war." "His 
virtues," says James Parton, in an interesting article, entitled, 
"The Exploits of Edmond Genet in the United States," pub- 
lished in the Atlantic Monthly, for April, 1873, (Vol. XXXI, 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

pp. 385-405), at page 403, "were his own; his errors were those 
of the time in which he was called upon to act." Allowing for 
the difference in time and popular sentiment, his conduct was 
quite as decent and as considerate as that of Von Bernstorff, 
prior to his expulsion from the United States, in 1917. A 
grandson of Genet, by the way, is said to have graduated from 
the United States Military Academy, at West Point, and to 
have served in the United States Army, and another descendant 
was killed in the World War. Parton opens his article, men- 
tioned above, with this striking paragraph: 

"It seemed an odd freak of destiny that sent Edmond 
Genet, a protege of Marie Antoinette, to represent the 
Republic of France in the United States. Gouverneur 
Morris, in his neat, uncompromising manner, sums up this 
young diplomat, aged twenf^eight, in 1793, as 'a man of 
good parts and very good education, brother to the queen's 
first woman, from whence his fortune originates.' Even so. 
He was a brother of that worthy and capable Madame 
Campan, first jemme de chambre to Marie Antoinette, and, 
after the queen's death, renowned through Europe as the 
head of a seminary for young ladies in Paris. It was she 
who wrote a hundred circulars with her own hand because 
she had not money to get them printed, and received sixty 
pupils the first year, — Hortense, ere long, from Napoleon's 
own hand." 

It seems to me that the article under review does not suf- 
ficiently bring out the relation of Genet to Michaux and of 
Jefferson to both of these men, before Governor Shelby was 
ever approached on the subject of an expedition "down the 
river." It was Jefferson who, at the instance of Genet, gave to 
Andre Michaux a letter of introduction to Shelby, fully accred- 
iting Michaux, not only as a botanist and man of science, but 
as the trusted political friend of Genet, the French Minister. 
When Jefferson did this, he knew that Michaux was the con- 
fidential agent of Genet. He could not fail to realize that the 
tendency of his letter of introduction would be to throw Gov- 
ernor Shelby off his guard and lull him into a sense of security 
so far as Genet and Michaux, and their subordinates, were 
concerned. Genet operated on Depauw (not Depeau nor 

8 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

Delpeau), LaChaise, Mathurin, and Gignoux (or PisGignoux), 
through Michaux, and therefore, Governor Shelby's bearing 
and demeanor toward Depauw and LaChaise can only be 
properly understood by taking into account the fact that the 
way for their reception had been paved by Michaux, who 
called upon Governor Shelby, armed with flattering letters of 
introduction from Thomas Jefferson and John Brown, the 
latter then at Philadelphia as U. S. Senator from Kentucky. 

At the same time, it is fairly apparent from Michaux's 
Journal that he did not make much headway with Governor 
Shelby, respecting the political aspects of his visit to Kentucky, 
for he fails to record any expression or utterance of Shelby's 
which betokens approval of or sympathy for the proposed ex- 
pedition. He called to see Governor Shelby two or three times, 
once before and once or twice after, the enterprise had col- 
lapsed, but on no occasion does he represent the Governor as 
falling in with the plans of Clark and Genet, The contrary 
is true as to General Ben Logan, George Rogers Clark, Henry 
Lee (of Mason County, cousin of General Henry Lee, Gov- 
ernor of Virginia), Alexander D. Orr (at that time a Repre- 
sentative in Congress from Kentucky), Thomas Barbee, and 
others, and, in a qualified way, as to Col. George Nicholas. 
Read Michaux's Journal and judge for yourself. My personal 
opinion is that Shelby's transparent honesty and integrity re- 
pelled Michaux and it may be doubted whether he ever directly 
broached to Shelby the subject of a warlike expedition down 
the Mississippi, to be sponsored by responsible citizens of Ken- 
tucky. Shelby's attitude, moreover, taken at its worst, was 
simply symptomatic of a condition that existed all over the 
country and was by no means limited to Kentucky or the 
Southwest, In the Presidential election of 1792, Kentucky's 
four electoral votes were cast for Jefferson. Of the fourteen 
(14) delegates who represented the Kentucky District in the 
Virginia Convention of 1788, only three (3), one of whom was 
Humphrey Marshall, acting contrary to the known will of his 
constituents, voted in favor of ratifying the Federal Consti- 
tution. Marshall, by the way, had been denied membership in 
the Danville Political Club in 1787, five members voting in the 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

negative on the motion to elect him. John Breckinridge, Pres- 
ident of the Lexington Democratic Society, in 1793, and, after 
December 19, 1793, Attorney General of Kentucky, and, there- 
by, the official legal adviser of Governor Shelby, five years 
later became the proponent, in the Kentucky Legislature, of 
Jefferson's "Kentucky Resolutions of 1798." Humphrey 
Marshall defeated him for the U. S. Senatorship in 1795 but, 
in 1801, Breckinridge turned the tables on him and, in 1805, 
passed from the Senate to the post of Attorney-General in 
Jefferson's Cabinet. He was Jefferson's right-hand man in the 
movement to acquire Louisiana. John Brown had been a 
student in Jefferson's law office in Virginia, and these and 
other ties greatly complicated the situation in Kentucky. The 
affair with Genet was not a detached episode but an event 
inextricably caught in the intricate web of state and national 
politics. 

But insofar as Isaac Shelby is concerned, the point of the 
whole matter is, not that he knew of the scheme, but that he 
knew, or, at least, felt morally certain, that it would fail. The 
evidence on this point leaves no room for reasonable doubt, and, 
as Frederick J. Turner has expressed it, "supports Shelby's 
explanation" of November 15, 1794, and of July 1, 1812. It 
requires no assumption of senility to excuse his vigorous and 
convincing statement of the latter date. The remark to which 
Dr. Henderson has given place in his article that "There seems 
to be no doubt that Shelby has clearly fallen into error, after 
the lapse of years," etc., not only does Governor Shelby an in- 
justice in its implication of a failing or untrustworthy memory 
(a favorite fling of Roosevelt's), but it is out of harmony with 
the evidence. More than a year after the letter of July 1, 1812, 
was written by Governor Shelby to Martin D. Hardin, the Gov- 
ernor of Kentucky had strength and vigor, both mental and 
physical, sufficient to assemble, command and lead four thou- 
sand Kentucky volunteers to victory in Upper Canada. Hold 
him responsible for whatever faults or mistakes he may fairly 
be chargeable with, but don't try to excuse him by making him 
out a dotard. 

The remark last referred to warns the reader that Governor 

10 



Isaac Sh^elby and the Genet Mission 

Shelby has clearly fallen into error, after the lapse of years, 
"in his assertion that on January 13, 1794, he was assured of 
the failure of the Franco-American expedition against Louis- 
iana — unless, indeed, he possessed a prophetic vision, based on 
reliable sources of 'inside information' available to but few." 
Shelby does not say that he "was assured" of the failure but 
that he "saw evidently that the whole scheme of Lachaise 
would fall to the ground without any interference." (Lachaise 
was so hard up that he tried to borrow money from Shelby 
and a loan was refused. — See Am. Hist. Assoc. Report, 1896, 
pp. 1105-1106.) Again, Dr. Henderson remarks, "It is dif- 
ficult to understand, looking at the events after the lapse of a 
century and a quarter, how Shelby could have had access to 
sources of information so positive, to the effect that the French 
enterprise would not even be attempted." Why is this so dif- 
ficult? Shelby was on the ground; he had been one of the 
earliest pioneers to Kentucky; he had been continuously a resi- 
dent of the State for ten years ; he not only knew but was known 
by his contemporaries in Kentucky as few other men of his 
time were, and he was believed in and trusted by the vast 
majority of his fellow-citizens. Much of his correspondence 
and papers of that period has been lost but enough for that and 
later times remains to show that he was advised and consulted 
about public affairs by practically every man of consequence 
in Kentucky. As Governor of Kentucky, he came into fre- 
quent contact, either at his home, "Traveller's Rest," near 
Knob Lick, or at the Executive Mansion, in Frankfort (in later 
years commonly called the "Palace"), with all the prominent 
people in Kentucky. One of the first acts of his first admin- 
istration was to commission all of the Militia officers of the 
State, practically all of whom were personally known to him. 
(See Ms. Exec. Journal, 1792-1796.) He knew that George 
Rogers Clark had "fallen from grace" and, to a large extent, 
had lost his influence years before Genet and Michaux and 
their subordinates appeared upon the scene. He knew that 
Clark was "broke" and was "sore" on the government; he 
could easily have learned from Logan and Nicholas, his neigh- 
bors, and from John Breckinridge, John Bradford, Robert Pat- 

11 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

terson, Levi Todd and Thomas Todd, and others in Lexington, 
how sorely in need of funds were the advocates and promoters 
of the proposed filibuster, and he had had abundant military 
experience of his own to satisfy him that, without adequate 
funds, the expedition must inevitably "fall to the ground." In 
these circumstances, and others, which may be readily imag- 
ined, it did not require "prophetic vision" to forecast the fiasco 
which did, in fact, come to pass. 

The population of Kentucky, at the time this project was 
being agitated, was close to a hundred thousand (100,000), 
with approximately fifteen to twenty thousand fighting men 
available for service, in an emergency. How many of these did 
Clark and his handful of noisy associates actually muster? 
McElroy (p, 171) asserts that "Clark's fame, together with 
these glittering promises, induced many to volunteer for the 
expedition, * * * confident that Clark would engage in no 
enterprise which he believed to be contrary to the best interests 
of his State and country." "Many" is, of course, a relative 
term, but the glib historian has certainly "drawn a long bow" 
as to the number of recruits, and the public confidence in 
Clark, at that time, is painted in brighter colors than the cold, 
unvarnished facts will justify. For he marshalled not exceed- 
ing two hundred (200) at the outside, barely enough for a 
modern Company, at full strength, or for what, in those days, 
would have passed for a "battalion." (See Am. Hist. Assoc. 
Report for 1896, p. 932.) The "two thousand brave Ken- 
tuckians" mentioned by Auguste Lachaise (whom I am tempted 
to call a "four-flusher") , in his swan-song letter of May 14, 1794, 
to the Democratic Society of Lexington, existed only on paper 
or in the fervid imagination of the sanguine Creole. They 
had no more real substance than Falstaff's "rogues in buckram," 
whose numbers grew with repeated telling and the seeming 
exigencies of his embarrassed predicament. Roosevelt (Win- 
ning of the West, Part VI, Chapter II), says: "No overt act 
of hostility was committed by Clark's people, except by some 
of those who started to join him from the Cumberland dis- 
trict, under the lead of a man named Montgomery." Also, says 
Roosevelt, "His (i. e. Clark's) agents gathered flat-boats and 

12 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

pirogues for the troops and laid in stores of powder, lead and 
beef. The nature of some of the provisions shows what a 
characteristic backwoods expedition it was; for Clark's agent 
(John Montgomery) notified him that he had ready (at what 
is now Clarksville, Tennessee), 'upwards of eleven hundred 
weight of Bear Meat and about seventy or seventy-four pair 
of Veneson Hams.' " And, again, "Some of the Cumberland 
people, becoming excited by the news of Clark's preparation, 
prepared to join him, or to undertake a separate filibustering 
attack on their own account." Only twenty-one (21) "free- 
booters" actually reported for duty at the mouth of Cumber- 
land River, "allotted as the place of Rendezvous." (See Penna. 
Gazette, June 4, 1794, and Am. Hist. Assoc. Rep. 1896, p. 1063.) 
All of this happened, it will be observed, outside of and south 
of Kentucky. William Blount, Federal Governor of the "Terri- 
tory South of the Ohio" (now Tennessee), interposed to arrest 
the unlawful enterprise, and what men of sober-minded com- 
mon sense thought of the wild scheme is well expressed by 
Thomas Portell, Commandant at New Madrid, in a letter of 
January 17, 1794, to Gen. James Robertson. Said Portell: 

"I have never doubted but that the thinking people of 
Kentucky and Cumberland would discountenance any 
measure that tended to a breach of that happy harmony 
and good understanding that subsist between the two 
nations" (i. e. Spain and the United States). See Am. 
Hist. Assoc. Report, 1896, p. 1035. 

Dr. Henderson's argument against what he is pleased to call 
"prophetic vision" by Isaac Shelby, at the time the letter from 
Shelby to Jefferson, of January 13, 1794, was written, and his 
charge that, in 1812, "Governor Shelby has clearly fallen into 
error," is based on the alleged fact that "at this very time (i. e. 
January 13, 1794), General George Rogers Clark was exten- 
sively circulating throughout Kentucky his 'Proposals for rais- 
ing the volunteers, &c.' " Just what authority there is for this 
assertion, that Clark's "Proposals" were being "extensively 
circulated throughout Kentucky," I am not at this moment 
aware. 

Certain it is that Clark realized the need of circumspection, 

13 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

for, in writing to Genet from Louisville, under date of October 
3, 1793, he had said: 

"I find that I shall have to be very circumspect in my 
conduct while in this cuntry and guard against doing any 
thing that would injure the U States or giving offence 
to their Govt., but in a few days after seting sail we shall 
be out of their Govermet I shall then be at liberty to give 
full scope to the authority of the Commission you did me 
the Honour to send." (Am. Hist. Assoc. Report, 1896, 
Vol. I, p. 1008.) 

Dr. Henderson proceeds with the further statement that 
these "Proposals" were "so favorably received by the public, 
that they were actually set forth, in full, in the Centinel of the 
North-Western Territory, Cincinnati, January 25, 1794." The 
logic of this proposition is not very obvious. I can't see that 
their publication in a newspaper north of the Ohio River and 
within the jurisdiction of General Arthur St. Clair, Federal 
Governor of that territory, points to a "favorable reception" 
in Kentucky. There is no evidence, that I know of, that they 
had ever appeared in any public print anywhere in Kentucky 
prior to their publication in the "Centinel of the North-West." 
Furthermore, this publication in the "Centinel" was twelve 
days AFTER Shelby had dispatched his letter to Jefferson, 
Secretary of State. Continuing, Dr. Henderson informs the 
reader that "contrary to Shelby's statement, quoted above, it 
appears certain," etc., and the projectors of the enterprise 
"were so emboldened by the favorable sentiment in Kentucky 
that Lachaise and Depeau had the temerity to address the 
Governor on the subject, and General Clark sent forth openly 
and broadcast his 'Proposals,' etc., which doubtless were read 
by Governor Shelby." This is, to some extent, reversing the 
order of events. Shelby's "statement" to General Wayne bears 
date February 10, 1794, some two months and a half after 
LaChaise and DePauw had written him from Knob Lick, on 
November 25, 1793, (on which date the Governor appears to 
have been at the seat of Government, in Frankfort, the Legis- 
lature being then in session). The question is, what was Gov- 
ernor Shelby's "estimate of the situation," (to use a modern 

14 



Isaac Shiilby and the Genet Mission 

military phrase), on January 13, 1794, and, again, on February 
10, 1794, and not what may have been the mood of the "pro- 
jectors of the enterprise" in the end of the preceding Novem- 
ber. Dr. Henderson then adds, "As a matter of fact, the text 
of the 'Proposals' was printed at Lexington in the Kentucky 
Gazette six days prior to the date of Shelby's letter to Wayne," 
i. e., February 4th, 1794 (really on February 8th, 1794, only 
two days prior to the date of that letter) . But, leaving out of 
view the fact that the First Amendment to the Federal Con- 
stitution and Section 7 of Article XII (the Bill of Rights) of 
the First Constitution of Kentucky, were then in full opera- 
tion, guaranteeing freedom of speech and of the press, we in- 
vite attention to the fact that there was no publication of these 
"Proposals" in the "Kentucky Gazette" until they had first 
appeared in the "Centinel of the North-West," and it is shown 
in the Gazette that they had been copied from the "Centinel." 
If the Federal Governor of the Northwest Territory would 
tolerate their publication in a newspaper within his jurisdic- 
tion, why might not an editor in the State of Kentucky reprint 
them with impunity? For John Bradford (a sketch of whose 
eventful life I have now in preparation), this much must be 
said in vindication of his substantial loyalty to the Federal 
Government, his respect for the Government of the Common- 
wealth of Kentucky, and his essential conservatism (not unlike 
that of Col. George Nicholas), toward this business, with 
which he undoubtedly sympathized, that in December, 1793, 
as shown by a letter of December 19, 1793, written by him 
from Lexington to M. Chas. DePauw, at Knob Lick, he had 
informed DePauw that so much of his "Address to the Inhab- 
itants of Louisiana" as declared "That the Republicans of the 
Western Country are ready (to go down) the Ohio and Mis- 
sissippi," "is inadmissible into the Kentucky Gazette." To 
this, Bradford, a warm personal friend of Shelby's, added: 
"/ think if it was to be published, it would excite opposition in 
the Executive of this State to the measure." How could it 
have been supposed by Bradford, a close friend of Gov. Shelby, 
that the latter would "oppose" "the measure," if some such 
intimation had not been conveyed to him from Governor 

15 



A Review by Samuel M, Wilson 

Shelby himself or if, as is now asserted, Governor Shelby was 
"in hearty sympathy with the movement?" (For Bradford's 
letter, see Report of Am. Hist. Assoc, for 1896, pp. 1023-1024.) 
And if such unanimity of sentiment favorable to the enterprise 
existed in Kentucky (as has been represented), why should 
Bradford have hesitated to print anything DePauw offered or 
anything he pleased about it? There was not only a "Spanish 
party," but a formidable Federal element, or, perhaps, it would 
be more accurate to say, a strongly conservative element in 
Kentucky, as well as the party of "French Democrats." In 
this connection, may I be allowed to say that I do not think 
the facts warrant the statement of Dr. Henderson that Gov- 
ernor Shelby "vehemently takes sides and frankly serves 
notice on Jefferson that personally and individually, as a rep- 
resentative of sentiment among the inhabitants on the 'western 
waters,' he (Shelby) is in hearty sympathy with George Rogers 
Clark and with the movement, engineered by Genet, which 
Clark is preparing to head." I do not think Shelby's letter of 
January 13, 1794, is fairly susceptible of any such interpre- 
tation. I do not think the facts by any means warrant the 
assumption that he was "in hearty sympathy with George 
Rogers Clark and with the movement." This letter of Janu- 
ary 13, 1794, manifests acute irritation, on the part of the 
Governor, but its language is frank and its meaning unmis- 
takable. Whatever mental reservations the astute Secretary 
of State (Jefferson) may have had, when he wrote his two 
letters of August 29th, 1793, and November 6th, 1793, this 
much, at least, may be said for Governor Shelby, that he had 
nothing to conceal and was absolutely candid. As Parton has 
remarked, in his "Exploits of Edmond Genet," in reference to 
a paroxysm of rage which one day got the better of Washing- 
ton, "Happy the mortal who has no worse fault than a rare 
outburst of legitimate and harmless anger!" 

Let us follow Shelby's course, as disclosed by the evidence, 
and see if there was any sufficient ground for distrusting his 
fidelity to the Federal government. In his letter of October 
5, 1793, to Jefferson, written nearly a month after Michaux 
had called upon him (Sept. 13, 1793), with a letter of intro- 

16 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

duction from Jefferson, dated June 28th, 1793, and, of course, 
after the arrival of Jefferson's official letter of date, August 
29th, 1793, Shelby said: 

"I shall be particularly attentive to prevent any 
attempts of that nature from this country. I am well 
persuaded, at present, none such is in contemplation in 
this place. The citizens of Kentucky possess too just a 
sense of the obligations they owe the general government, 
to embark in any enterprise that would be so injurious to 
the United States." 

What was the state of affairs at the time this letter was 
written? Shelby had come into contact only with Michaux, 
"a man of unusual intelligence." When Michaux called upon 
General Ben. Logan (a neighbor and friend of Shelby's I , on 
September 11th, 1793, two days before his first visit to Shelby, 
at "Traveller's Rest," he found that the project was looked 
upon as in abeyance. Says Michaux (Early Western Travels, 
Vol. Ill, pp. 39-40) : 

"I confided to him (Logan) the Commission entrusted 
to me. He told me he would be delighted to take part in 
the enterprise but that he had received a letter a few days 
previously from J. Brown, which informed him that nego- 
tiations had been begun between the United States and 
the Spaniards respecting the navigation of the Mississippi, 
and the Creek Indians ; That a messenger had been sent to 
Madrid and that any one of the United States that would 
venture to act in a hostile manner against the Spaniards 
before the return of the first of December next, would be 
disapproved by the federal Government." 

Logan was a straightforward, simple-hearted, guileless 
kind of a man, and he evidently took this advice of Brown's 
literally, for, under date of December 31st, 1793, we find him 
"once more offering his feeble aid" to Clark, (Am. Hist. Assoc. 
Rep., 1896, p. 1026.) 

Continuing, Michaux related (Early Western Travels, Vol. 
Ill, p. 42) : 

"The 17th of September (179S) visited General Clarke. 
I handed him the Letters from the Minister and informed 
him of the object of my Mission. He told me that he was 

17 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

very eager for the Undertaking but that, although he had 
written so long ago (Feb. 2 and 5, 1793), he had received 
no answer and thought it had been abandoned. I told him 
that his letter had fallen into other hands and that the 
Minister had received it only indirectly after his arrival 
in Philadelphia. He informed me that a fresh circum- 
stance seemed to oppose an obstacle to it." 

Is it strange, with Clark and Logan, the two principal con- 
federates in the contemplated expedition in Kentucky, both 
regarding the project as in suspense or abandoned, that the 
Governor of Kentucky, a little more than two weeks later, 
should have written Jefferson as he did? 

On September 28th, 1793, two weeks after Michaux's visit 
and one week before Shelby made his first reply to Jefferson, 
Governor Shelby, at the instance of the national government, 
ordered a draft of troops in aid of Wayne, in his pending cam- 
paign against the Indians north of the Ohio, and this draft was 
entirely successful. On October 24th, 1793, Major-General 
Charles Scott, of Kentucky, with one thousand (1,000) mounted 
Kentuckians, joined General Wayne six miles north of Fort 
Jefferson and eighty miles north of Cincinnati. (Collins, Hist. 
of Ky., Vol. I, p. 23.) These reinforcements entered the ser- 
vice of the General Government. 

In the light of the evidence, I submit that Shelby's letter 
of October 5, 1793, to Jefferson contained an absolutely fair 
statement of the situation, as it then existed. 

More correspondence ensued, and then Shelby, on Febru- 
ary 10, 1794 (barely a month after his letter of January 13, 
1794, to Jefferson), wrote General Anthony Wayne, among 
other things, as follows: 

"I can assure you that there is not the smallest prob- 
ability that such an enterprise will be attempted; if it 
should, the Militia of this State, I am fully persuaded, 
are able and willing to suppress every attempt that can be 
made here to violate the laws of the Union." 

There are two statements in this extract which invite con- 
sideration: (1st) the improbability of the filibuster ever 
materializing; (2nd) the ability and willingness of the mili- 

18 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

tary forces of Kentucky to repress it; and, we think the sequel 
will show, these statements demonstrate that Isaac Shelby was 
endowed with common sense, common honesty, and sound 
judgment, if not gifted with "prophetic vision." 

Shelby's official legal adviser, until December 19th, 1793, 
was not, primarily, James Brown, Secretary of State, but Wil- 
liam Murray, Attorney-General of Kentucky, in succession to 
Col. George Nicholas, who had resigned shortly after his ap- 
pointment on June 15, 1792, upon the establishment of the 
State government. John Breckinridge, an outspoken "Repub- 
lican," was, on December 19, 1793, appointed Attorney-General 
to succeed Murray, a staunch "Federalist" (who had served a 
little more than a year), and there is reason to believe that 
Breckinridge, rather than Brown, advised the Governor re- 
specting the legal aspects of the case, which are canvassed by 
Governor Shelby in his letter to Jefferson of January 13, 1794. 
Breckinridge, like Senator John Brown, had been a friend and 
(in a sense) a protege of Jefferson in Virginia, and, as I have 
pointed out above, after serving as U. S. Senator from Ken- 
tucky, was Attorney-General of the United States, in the cabi- 
net of Jefferson, during a part of Jefferson's second term. He 
was a young man, when he came to Kentucky in 1793, but was 
recognized at once as one of the ablest lawyers in the West. 
The advice he gave Shelby was, from a legal standpoint, sound, 
as subsequent events proved. His elder half-brother, Robert 
Breckinridge, who lived in or near Louisville, in Jefferson 
County, was the first Speaker of the House of Representatives 
of Kentucky, and a man of property, sense and influence. 
Robert Breckinridge was one of three only of Kentucky's 
fourteen delegates to the Virginia Convention of 1788, to vote 
in favor of the ratification of the Federal Constitution, and 
may reasonably be counted a "Federalist." He held the office 
of Speaker at the time he wrote to Governor Shelby the letter, 
now to be considered. He was also a Brigadier-General in the 
State Militia. This letter, bearing date 10th January, 1794, 
three days before the letter from Shelby to Jefferson, and just 
a month ahead of Shelby's letter to General Wayne, will be 

19 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

found in its entirety in the Am. Hist. Assoc. Report for 1896, 
at pp. 1032-1033. I quote from it as follows: 

"We have nothing new in this quarter except that 
there is some little stir relative to the intended expedition 
against the Spanish Settlements on the Mississippi — A 
young man of this county, communicated a writing to me, 
the other day, on that subject without signature. It began 
with 'Geo. R. Clark Esqr. Majr Genl in the Armies of 
France and Commander in Chief of the French Army on 
the Mississippi,' and proceeded to instructions for recruit- 
ing men destined for that Service. This pompous title 
raises the expectations considerably, but when contrasted 
with the unhappy situation of the leader, and some French 
men about him, every idea of carrying the scheme into 
execution droops. — I sincerely wish the French Republic 
success, but if that nation have any hopes, or our General 
Government any fears, from this interprize, both will be 
disappointed, in my opinion. 

"A proclamation of St Clairs appeared at the Falls the 
other day forbiding the Citizens of the United States, 
North West of the Ohio, from engaging with Certain 
French men in that expidition, or commixing any other act 
which might envolve the United States in a war with the 
Spaniards, and to observe a strict neutrality towards all 
belligerent powers." 

It is not unlikely that this letter is but one of a number of 
similar tenor received by Governor Shelby from leading citi- 
zens throughout the State. Taken alone, it speaks for itself 
and is sufficient for the purpose. 

But let us here place by the side of it some extracts from 
the letter of February 16, 1794, from Shelby's distinguished 
Secretary of State, James Brown: 

"The information which has reached me since the date 
of my last letter," wrote Brown to Shelby, "has induced 
me to accord with you in the opinion as to the result of that 
enterprise; and has fully convinced me that nothing less 
than a considerable supply of money will enable the pro- 
moters of it to effectuate their intentions. I therefore 
clearly concur with you in the sentiment, that it would be, 
at present, unnecessary to take any active measures in the 
business; and if unnecessary, it would certainly be impolitic 
to exercise powers of so questionable a nature as those 

20 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

which the General Government have adopted, and now 
wish you to exert. 

"Indeed it appears to me that good policy will justify 
the Executive of this country, in discovering a certain de- 
gree of unwillingness to oppose the progress of an enter- 
prise, which has for its object the free navigation of the 
Mississippi. * » * These representations could not be 
made to government at a more favorable juncture. Morti- 
fied at finding, etc., * * * they may be alarmed at the 
idea of our detaching ourselves from the Union at so crit- 
ical a period. I am therefore happy that, whilst you have 
expressed your devotion to the laws and constitution of the 
Union, you have reminded the government of what is due 
to us as a State, and that power ought not to be assumed 
for the punishment of those whose object is to do what 
government ought long ago have done for us." (Butler's 
Hist, of Ky., Ed. 1836, pp. 229-230; and Amer. Hist. Assoc. 
Rep., 1896, pp. 1040-1041.) 

Among other documents transmitted to Congress by the 
President, with his Special Message of May 20th, 1794, was a 
Memorandum, doubtless furnished him either by St. Clair or 
Wayne, from which I make the following quotations: 

"Mr. John S. Gano, of Cincinnati, North West Terri- 
tory, came through Kentucky, was at Lexington and 
Frankfort six days, and left Lexington on the 8th or 9th 
of April (1794). 

"He says, that the expedition of General Clarke, to 
open the free navigation of the Mississippi, which had 
been suspended apparently for want of money, had again 
revived, and it was said owing to a supply of money which 
had arrived by a Frenchman, said to be a major, but whose 
name the informant does not recollect. * * * 

"That the measure of the expedition was openly advo- 
cated, and not opposed by any considerable numbers, but 
some did speak against it. That the President's proclama- 
tion had been received in Cincinnati, but he did not see 
any of them in Kentucky." (Am. State Papers, 2d Ed. 
Vol. 2, pp. 53-54.) 

This paper is of interest here as showing that an impres- 
sion prevailed that the expedition "had been suspended, ap- 
parently for want of money." It will become of interest again, 
when we come to consider the President's Message of May 

21 



A Review by Samuel M, Wilson 

20th, 1794, and the letter from the Secretary of War to Gov- 
ernor Shelby of May 16th, 1794. 

Governor Shelby not only gave explicit assurance of his 
loyal attitude in his letter of October 5, 1793, to Jefferson, but 
in his reply to DePauw, from Frankfort, on November 28, 1793, 
he gives DePauw explicitly to understand that he will carry 
out the instructions received from the Federal authorities at 
Philadelphia. He recites the substance of these instructions 
and then curtly tells his ingratiating correspondent that to this 
charge "I must pay that attention which my present situation 
obliges me." This is no more nor less than what he said, in a 
few more words, in the concluding paragraph of his letter of 
January 13th, 1794, to Jefferson, viz: 

"But whatever may be my private opinion, as a man, 
as a friend to liberty, an American citizen, and an inhab- 
itant of the Western Waters, / shall at all times hold it as 
my duty to perform whatever may be constitutionally re- 
quired of me as Governor of Kentucky, by the President 
of the United States." (Am. State Papers, 2d Ed. Vol. 2, 
pp. 38-40.) 

Nor is his language to General Wayne, in his letter of Feb- 
ruary 10, 1794, out of harmony with this. Let us read this 
language again: 

"I can assure you that there is not the smallest prob- 
ability that such an enterprise will be attempted; if it 
should, the Militia of this State, I am fully persuaded, are 
able and willing to suppress every attempt that can be 
made here to violate the laws of the Union. (Butler, 
Hist, of Ky., 2d Ed., App. p. 524.) 

What was the position and predilection of the Kentucky 
militia and of the great mass of the veterans of the Revolu- 
tionary War, then in Kentucky? 

This question may be answered, in part, by reference to the 
letter of July 5th, 1794, from Major William Price to Governor 
Shelby, which will be found at page 150 of the 1913 Year Book 
of the Kentucky Society of Sons of the Revolution. (Major 
Price, under General Scott, joined Wayne on July 26th, 1794.) 
It is even more positively answered by the historical fact that 

22 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

in the preceding September, in response to Governor Shelby's 
order for a draft, one thousand (1,000) Kentucky riflemen had 
cheerfully rallied around General Charles Scott and marched 
with him to join Wayne eighty miles north of Cincinnati, 
where they arrived on October 24th, 1793. The season being 
too far advanced to admit of an offensive campaign, these men 
returned home and were back in Kentucky, when Shelby wrote 
to Wayne, on February 10, 1794. (Collins, Hist, of Ky., Vol. I, 
p. 23.) The question is even more emphatically answered by 
the historical fact that, in the month of May, 1794, when Gen- 
eral Henry Knox, Secretary of War, speaking in the name of 
the President, called on Kentucky for reinforcements to help 
Wayne in his memorable campaign of that year against the 
Northwestern tribes, some sixteen hundred (1600) mounted 
volunteers from Kentucky, under Major-General Charles Scott, 
whose loyalty nobody ever dared to question, and officered in 
part by Brigadier-Generals Thomas Barbee and Robert Todd 
(both of whom had apparently lent a friendly countenance to 
the French intrigue), responded with alacrity to this appeal, 
and this formidable force (equal in number to the "regulars" 
under Wayne), rendered most effective aid in winning the de- 
cisive battle of the Fallen Timber. Contrast this prompt re- 
sponse of the patriotic sons of Kentucky with the miserable 
showing made by Clark and his confederates in their efforts to 
raise a hostile band against the Spanish possessions in Louis- 
iana, and what must be the inference? 

When the French enterprise was first brought to Shelby's 
attention, the Commonwealth of Kentucky was barely a year 
old; the Federal government was but a little over four years 
old and by many still regarded as an experiment; and, as 
Frederick Jackson Turner well says, in reference to the Genet 
program: "The details of its inception and progress reveal 
the inchoate condition of national feeling in the West." He 
might, with truth, have added that "national feeling" was 
scarcely less inchoate in the East, as will presently be shown. 

Before I leave the subject of the justification for Governor 
Shelby's confidence that the Clark-Genet expedition must end 
in failure, let me call attention to the "fallen estate" of that 

23 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

one time military hero and popular idol, George Rogers Clark. 
It has been seen what was thought of him by a neighbor and 
contemporary, Robert Breckinridge, writing Governor Shelby 
on January 10th, 1794. Here is what his admirer and eulogist, 
Humphrey Marshall, had to say of him, in reference to his 
condition in 1786: 

"General Wilkinson, who was at the Falls of the Ohio, 
wrote to a friend in Fayette, 'that the sun of General 
Clarke's military glory was set, never more to rise.' There 
was much meaning in this sentence, which those who had 
fathomed Wilkinson knew how to interpret, and appre- 
ciate. 

"Rumors were indeed unfavorable to General Clark. 
But those rumors were set afloat by his enemies, who 
wanted an apology for their own conduct; and who, in 
their turn, were accused of fomenting the insubordination 
of which they availed themselves to terminate the cam- 
paign. 

"Candour, however, extorts a confession, which is made 
with regret, that General Clark, at this time, 'was not the 
man he had been.' A high sense of injustice, and a mind 
corroded by chagrin, had been left with General Clark by 
the government, whose territory he had enlarged, and 
whose reputation he had raised to renown; which in the 
ennue and mortification, incident to a state of inaction, 
had sought extinguishment, or oblivion, in the free use of 
ardent spirits. 

"He was accused, with too much truth, for his fame, 
with frequent intoxication; even in his camp." (Marshall's 
Hist, of Ky., 1812 Ed., pp. 291-292.) 

When Governor Shelby became a candidate for Governor 
of Kentucky, in 1812, Volume I of Humphrey Marshall's His- 
tory of Kentucky was all that had been published. This vol- 
ume only brings the history of the Commonwealth down to the 
year 1791, and, of course, the story of the machinations of 
Genet, in 1793 and 1794, is not developed. In this first edition 
of Marshall's History, the author says just as little about Isaac 
Shelby as it was possible to say; whereas he devotes pages to 
Benjamin Logan and George Rogers Clark and others of less 
fame. As to Clark, see, for example, pages 94, 97. Yet, as 
Marshall is forced to admit, seven years before Genet began 

24 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

his operations in Kentucky and in the South and Southwest, 
Clark had sacrificed his leadership and forfeited his prestige 
by excessive indulgence in strong drink. The expedition of 
September, 1786, against the Indians, led by Clark, was, so far 
as Clark was concerned, an utter and ignominious failure. 
(Marshall, Hist, of Ky., Ed. 1812, p. 290.) (For further testi- 
mony to Clark's growing habit of inebriety, see Cal, Va. State 
Papers, Vol. II). 

One of the finest and noblest characters in the West was 
General Benjamin Logan, of Kentucky, and Humphrey Mar- 
shall cannot praise him too highly, (See Marshall's Hist. Ky., 
Ed. 1812, pp. 60-72.) Among other things, he says: "The 
statesman's eye is crowned with the warrior's brow; and a 
countenance which displays an unyielding fortitude, invites to 
a confidence which was never betrayed." Yet it is clear from 
the evidence that Logan was almost as deep in the mud as 
Clark was in the mire, in the matter of the Genet expedition. 
It does not in the slightest degree lessen Logan in my estima- 
tion that this was so, but charity, if not partiality, demands an 
even more complete exoneration of the character and conduct 
of Isaac Shelby, whose talents were as great and character as 
pure as that of Logan or any of his associates and contempo- 
raries. 

It is noticeable that Humphrey Marshall says not a word 
about George Rogers Clark's offer of his sword and services to 
Spain, in 1788, in return for a land grant, yet the fact was 
notorious, and any combination with the Spaniards was an 
abomination to the intolerant Humphrey, It really mattered 
little to Clark under whose banner he served, he was ready to 
expatriate himself for either France or Spain, and his military 
prowess and resources were always at the disposal of the highest 
bidder. In witness of this, observe how he threatened and 
blustered, when he called upon the Virginia Council and the 
Executive of Virginia for munitions in 1776, with which to 
checkmate the Transylvania project and to solidify the re- 
sistance to the Indians. 

Referring to the proposed expedition against Louisiana, 

25 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

Roosevelt (Winning of the West, Part VI, Chap. II), has 
tersely said: 

"It was a piece of sheer filibustering, not differing 
materially from one of Walker's filibustering attempts in 
Central America sixty years later, save that at this time 
Clark had utterly lost his splendid vigor of body and mind 
and was unfit for the task he had set himself." 

"A la tete de ces flibustiers des Bois," in March, 1793, wrote 
Pierre Lyonnet, a Frenchman, who had lived in New Orleans, 
was to be placed this same George Rogers Clark. (Am. Hist. 
Review, Vol. Ill, p. 501.) Clark's claim for reimbursement 
from "La Republique Francaise" asks pay for — 

"A une Capttaine 1 lieutenant et 100 hommes pendant 
deux Mois, $1346." (Am. Hist. Assoc. Rep., 1896, p. 
1072.) 

Concerning this "corporal's guard," Clark himself wrote 
from Louisville, to "The Committee of Public Safety," on 
November 2d, 1795: 

"I think unnesisary to inclose a Return of the Recruits 
as they ware (except one Company) never called to the 
field as Col. Fulton will fully explain to you." (Am. 
Hist. Assoc. Rep., 1896, pp. 1095-96.) 

The closer one gets to the "two thousand brave Ken- 
tuckians," how sadly they fade away! To have sent an army 
against Clark "and Company" would have been more futile 
even than the monster military demonstration launched by the 
General Government against the Whiskey Insurgents in West- 
ern Pennsylvania, concerning which Jefferson, in May, 1795, 
wrote to James Monroe: "An insurrection was announced, 
and proclaimed, and armed against and marched against, and 
could never be found. (W. W., Hist. Am. People, Vol. Ill, 
p. 137.) 

John R. Spears, in his "History of the Mississippi Valley," 
published in 1903, makes a brief allusion to Citizen Genet and 
his Mississippi Scheme, at page 371, of his book, as follows: 

"Then the shadow of the French Revolution reached 
out to the United States. 'Citizen' Genet was sent over as 

- 26 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

Minister. He arrived on April 8, 1793. He brought 300 
. blank army and navy commissions with him, and sent an 
agent to Kentucky to enlist enough men there to help the 
French of New Orleans throw off the Spanish yoke. George 
Rogers Clark was the chosen head of this proposed expe- 
dition, although for years he had been a common drunk- 
ard. But how much of substance there was to the intrigue 
appears from the fact that Clark received only $400 cash 
for the expenses of the 2,000 men he was to organize and 
conduct down the river." 

At page 385, Spears calls attention to the fact that Jeffer- 
son, who, as Secretary of State of the United States, had been 
in correspondence with Governor Shelby regarding the designs 
of Genet — 

"Had ideahzed, if he had not idolized, the French. 
He had spoken of the excitement raised in the United 
States when 'Citizen' Genet was distributing piratical 
commissions from Charleston to Philadelphia as a revival 
of the'Spint of 1776.'" 

On January 1st, 1794, as we know, President Washington 
accepted Jefferson's resignation from his cabinet, and Jeffer- 
son's post as Secretary of State was taken by Edmund Ran- 
dolph, who had been Attorney General. Washington after- 
wards fell out with Randolph for what he regarded as dis- 
loyalty, and toward the close of the year 1795, practically 
"fired" him from the cabinet. 

As Spears points out (Hist. Miss. Valley, p. 364), as early 
as 1786, Clark had contemplated a filibustering expedition 
down the river, at least as far as Natchez, "but nothing was 
done." Thus it was, throughout his later years, from the time 
drink began to get the better of him, in the early eighties, until 
the Genet fiasco and later. With the view of doing something 
to regain his lost prestige and repair his broken fortunes, 
Clark was spasmodically planning military expeditions on a 
grand scale only to have them end in dismal and pathetic 
failure. It gives me no pleasure to recall these things. I love 
and admire Clark immensely for what he had so handsomely 
done, in the brilliant heyday of his unspoiled youth, but these 
unpleasant truths help us the better to understand why Gov- 

27 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

ernor Shelby discounted the prospects of the French filibuster, 
looked on the ingratiating overtures of Lachaise and DePauw 
with such seeming equanimity and viewed the flaming mani- 
festo of Clark and his associated firebrands with such self- 
assured composure. Shelby not only knew Clark, but he knew 
his Kentuckrans also, as Humphrey Marshall, an extreme 
partisan, egotistical, morose, and vitriolic, never did; and the 
"Hero of King's Mountain" was not to be thrown into a panic 
by loud and vociferous talk. 

In the article under review, Dr. Henderson quotes from an 
anonymous communication entitled "The Crisis," and signed 
"An Old-fashioned Republican," which was published in the 
Kentucky Gazette for February 8, 1794, and states that this 
incendiary article "closes with the following apostrophe, pre- 
sumably addressed to revolutionary leaders, among whom 
George Rogers Clark and Isaac Shelby were numbered," etc. 
The logic of this presumption, I do not assail, but the propriety 
of joining Shelby with Clark among those likely to respond 
favorably to the passionate appeal, I respectfully question. 
The population of Kentucky, in 1793-94, as I have said, was 
not far from 100,000 and there were several thousand inhab- 
itants of the Commonwealth at that time who had formerly 
been soldiers of the Revolution. In ten dignified and orderly 
Conventions, running through a period of eight years from 
1784 to 1792, the goal of statehood had been slowly, labori- 
ously and patiently sought. If one would correctly under- 
stand the temper of Kentucky and of those who dominated its 
thought and controlled its action in those years, he must study 
the records of these Conventions and of the Political Club, 
which existed at Danville from 1786 to 1790. The temper of 
the "remaining veteran patriots," whom the author of the 
"Crisis" article apostrophizes, may fairly be gathered from the 
letter of July 5, 1794, written by Major William Price, of Fay- 
ette County, to Governor Shelby, and reproduced, as I have 
previously indicated, at page 150 of my 1913 Year Book for 
the Kentucky Society of Sons of the Revolution. As an anti- 
dote to Humphrey Marshall's prejudiced and distorted views 
of men and things, read Mann Butler's History of Kentucky, 

28 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

1836 Edition, and John Mason Brown's "Political Beginnings 
of Kentucky," and Judge Alex. P. Humphrey's Address on the 
"Political Club." Thomas Marshall Green's "Spanish Con- 
spiracy" is an able reply to Brown (who was then dead, and, 
of course, unable to make any rejoinder), but it is of interest 
to note that Green, a kinsman of Humphrey Marshall, but a 
better-balanced historian and a thoroughly fearless and out- 
spoken man, nowhere reflects upon Isaac Shelby in his narra- 
tive. Governor Shelby was no more accountable for the irre- 
sponsible utterances of any self-styled "Old-fashioned Repub- 
lican," than for the wild ravings of any other thoughtless 
enthusiast who may have felt impelled to break into print or 
to "breathe out threatenings" against constituted authority. 
In those days, any man "on the Western Waters" (Humphrey 
Marshall himself included), could print and publish with prac- 
tical immunity anything he pleased, being answerable only for 
offensive personalities. Even if the article had been directed at 
Shelby (which I seriously doubt), surely a man of honor, no 
less than a pure woman, is not to be besmirched by the indecent 
anonymous proposals of a blatherskite or a blackguard, and 
then, as now, freedom of speech and the liberty of the press 
were guaranteed by both the State and Federal Constitutions. 
Lest I forget it, although somewhat out of place, let me here 
call attention to the fact that Charles DePauw (who came 
over with LaFayette in 1777, became a useful and respected 
citizen of Kentucky, and whose grandson was the founder or 
chief benefactor of Depauw University, Indiana), in a paper 
he appears to have furnished Judge Harry Innes, in 1807-08, 
certifies among other things, that: 

"Genet gave Lachase but Little monny to come with 
me and I had some of the Burding to pay for him, he also ' 
rod one of my horses and was willecom at my table gratis 
— it is it is a well knowing feet that he after I refused him 
Loans of monny he went to governor Schelby and re- 
quested a Loan of monny from him But could not get any, 
and told a number of puple he would expose the gov for 
refusing 'is request." (Am. Hist, Assoc. Report, 1896, 
p. 1105.) 



t 20 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

If Shelby had even tacitly approved the plot that was 
hatching, is it likely that he would have flatly refused Lachaise 
(a Creole of Louisiana) a loan? 

In this connection, let me call attention to some significant 
occurrences that tend to show how loose as yet were the ties 
of even the purest patriots to the Federal Union. 

On April 29th, 1793 (three weeks after M. Genet had landed 
at Charleston, S. C, and ten days or more before he reached 
Philadelphia), General Henry Lee, Governor of Virginia, wrote 
from Richmond, the capital, to President Washington as fol- 
lows: 

"As soon after my hearing of your return to Mount 
Vernon as I could, I set out on a visit to you, but unfor- 
tunately your stay at home was so short that I could not 
see you. I had reached Stafford Court-House, when I 
accidentally learned that you had departed on the previous 
Sunday; and on knowing this I instantly turned back from 
whence I came. This disappointment would have always 
been mortifying to me, as it deprived me of the pleasure of 
seeing you ; but it was uncommonly so then, as I had vast 
solicitude to obtain your opinion on a subject highly in- 
teresting to me personally. 

"Bred to arms, I have always since my domestic 
calamity wished for a return to my profession, as the best 
resort for my mind in its afl3iction. Finding the serious 
turn, which the French affairs took last year, I interposed 
with the Marquis to obtain me a commission in their army, 
and at the same time made the same application in an- 
other way. The Marquis, about the time he got my letter, 
took the part, which issued so unfortunately to him. From 
him I had no reply. But from the other source I am in- 
formed, that a Major-General's commission will be given 
to me on my appearance in Paris, and that probably that 
it would be sent to me. I have detailed this to you, merely 
that your mind might be fully informed, inasmuch as the 
step I may take will be to me all-important, I am conse- 
quently solicitous for the best advice, and this I am per- 
suaded you can give. Should it be improper on your part, 
much as I want it, I must relinquish the hope. But as 
your opinion to me will never be known but to myself, and 
as I ask your counsel in your private character, I feel a 
presumption in favor of my wishes. 

"If fair war on terms of honor, with certainty of 

30 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

sustenance to the troops, and certainty of concert among 
the citizens, will and can be supported by France, I will 
embark. If the reverse in any part is probable, to go 
would be the completion of my lot of misery. You see my 
situation ; you have experienced my secrecy in my younger 
days, and you know the invincible affection I bear towards 
you. Apprehend no improper effects of your free opinion 
to me." (Sparks' Writings of Washington, Vol. X, pp. 
343-344, note.) 

As Dr. Henderson remarks of Shelby's letter to Jefferson, 
of January, 1794, this letter from Governor Lee to President 
Washington, "is extraordinary in many respects as coming 
from a governor of an American state and addressed to the 
general government." 

To this letter, Washington, under date of 6th May, 1793, 
wrote from Philadelphia to Governor Lee a reply marked 
"Private," from which the following extracts are taken: 

"On Saturday last your favor of the 29th ultimo was 
handed to me. * * * (After referring to his Proclama- 
tion of April 22, 1793, and to the Indian hostilities on the 
Western frontiers, he proceeds) : 

"I come now to a more difficult part of your letter. As 
a public character, I can say nothing on the subject of it. 
As a private man, I am unwilling to say much. Give ad- 
vice I shall not. All I can do, then, towards complying 
with your request is to declare that, if the case which you 
have suggested were mine, I should ponder well before I 
resolved; not only for private considerations, but on pub- 
lic grounds. The latter, because, being the first magis- 
trate of a respectable State, much speculation would be 
excited by such a measure, and the consequences thereof 
not seen into at the first glance. As it might respect my- 
self only, because it would appear a boundless ocean I 
was about to embark on, from whence no land is to be 
seen. In other words, because the affairs of (France) 
would seem to me to be in the highest paroxysm of dis- 
order; not so much from the pressure of foreign enemies, 
for in the cause of liberty this ought to be fuel to the fire 
of a patriotic soldier, and to increase his ardor, but be- 
cause those in whose hands the government is intrusted 
are ready to tear each other to pieces, and will more than 
probably prove the worst foes the country has. To all 
which may be added the probability of the scarcity of 

31 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

bread, from the peculiar circumstances of the contending 
parties, which, if it should happen, would accelerate a 
crisis of sad confusion, and possibly of entire change in 
the political system. 

"Although no name will appear in this letter, I beg it 
may be committed to the fiames as soon as it is read. I 
need not add, because you must know it, that I am always 
yours." (Sparks' Writings of Washington, Vol. X, pp. 
342-345.) 

The tone of this letter is conservative, to say the least, and 
it does not appear to frown very severely upon the frank sug- 
gestion that the distinguished Governor of Virginia was seri- 
ously considering accepting a commission as a Major-General 
in the Armies of France. There is said to be a vast difference 
between Philip drunk and Philip sober, but when one compares 
the case of George Rogers Clark, of the Western wilderness, 
unhampered by official obligations, with that of Henry Lee, of 
Tidewater Virginia, acting Governor of his native State, the 
ofifence of the former does not appear to have been so heinous 
or so unforgivable after all; and the behavior of Governor 
Shelby, in all the circumstances, must be conceded to have been 
unexceptionable. 

Going back a moment, it is interesting to note how softly 
Washington himself touched on the somewhat disturbing de- 
velopments of the Genet mission, in his Message to Congress 
of December 5, 1793. (Am. State Papers, Foreign Relations, 
2d Ed., Vol. I, pp. 49-50.) 

Here is his exact language: 

"It is with extreme concern, I have to inform you, that 
the proceedings of the person (Genet), whom they have 
unfortunately appointed their minister plenipotentiary 
here, have breathed nothing of the friendly spirit of the 
nation, which sent him; their tendency on the contrary, 
has been to involve us in war abroad, and discord and 
anarchy at home. So far as his acts, or those of his agents, 
have threatened our immediate commitment in the war, or 
flagrant insult to the authority of the laws, their effect 
has been counteracted by the ordinary cognizance of the 
laws, and by an exertion of the powers confided to me. 
Where their danger was not imminent, they have been 

32 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

borne with, from sentiments of regard to his nation; from 
a sense of their friendship toward us; from a conviction 
that they would not suffer us to remain long exposed to 
the action of a person, who has so little respected our 
mutual dispositions; and, I will add, from a reliance on 
the firmness of my fellow citizens in their principles of 
peace and order. 

"In the mean time, I have respected and pursued the 
stipulations of our treaties, according to what I judged 
their true sense; and have withheld no act of friendship, 
which their affairs have called for from us, and which 
justice to others left us free to perform. / have gone 
further; rather than employ force for the restitution of 
certain vessels, which I deemed the United States bound to 
restore, I thought it more advisable to satisfy the parties, 
by avowing it to be my opinion, that if restitution were not 
made, it would be incumbent on the United States to make 
compensation. The papers, now communicated, will more 
particularly apprize you of these transactions." 

Two months before his Proclamation of March 24th, 1794, 
warning against unauthorized expeditions against the terri- 
tory of Spain, President Washington, on January 20th, 1794, 
sent to Congress the following Message: 

"Having already laid before you a letter of the 16th 
of August, 1793, from the Secretary of State to our min- 
ister at Paris, stating the conduct, and urging the recall 
of the minister plenipotentiary of the Republic of France, 
I now communicate to you, that his conduct has been 
unequivocally disapproved, and that the strongest assur- 
ances have been given that his recall should be expedited 
without delay." (Am. St. Papers, For. Rel, 2d Ed., Vol. 
I, p. 490.) 

One can't help wondering why this important piece of news 
was not simultaneously communicated to Governor Shelby and 
other Southern Governors concerned. 

Shelby's letter of January 13th, 1794, must have reached 
the Department of State and have been brought to the atten- 
tion of the President early in February. Under date of Feb- 
ruary 23, 1794, Christopher Greenup, at that time a Repre- 
sentative in Congress from Kentucky and afterwards a Gov- 
ernor of Kentucky, wrote Gov. Shelby from Philadelphia, ad- 

33 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

vising him that Fauchet (Genet's successor) "arrived last 
Friday, and was introduced to the President, February 22." 
(Draper Collection, 11 Clark Mss., 246.) On March 6, 1794, 
Fauchet's Orders were inserted in the "Centinel of the North- 
western Territory," revoking commissions and forbidding 
Frenchmen to violate United States neutrality. (Collins, 
Kentucky, Vol. II, p. 113.) Yet not until March 24th, 1794, 
does the President come out with his vigorous Proclamation 
denouncing the abortive expedition. (Richardson's Messages 
& Papers of the Presidents, Vol. I, p. 157.) And not until 
March 29th, 1794, did Edmund Randolph, Secretary of State, 
follow this up with his labored argument to demonstrate the 
inconsistency between Shelby's letters of October 5, 1793, and 
January 13th, 1794; attempt to lay down the law applicable 
to the case; and advise the Kentucky Governor that negotia- 
tions for the free navigation of the Mississippi were progress- 
ing, and that the new French Minister (Fauchet) had dis- 
avowed the expedition. 

In my opinion, it is not correct to say that Governor Shel- 
by's letter of January 13th, 1794, to Jefferson, precipitated 
President Washington's Proclamation of March 24th, 1794, or 
as Dr. Henderson puts it: "It is clear that the President, on 
the basis of Shelby's letter of January 13, 1794, feared that 
Shelby, in his capacity as Governor of Kentucky, was strongly 
disposed against taking drastic action, either legal or military, 
in suppressing the projected freebooting expedition. Accord- 
ingly, taking the matter into his own hands, he issued a proc- 
lamation (March 24, 1794) declaring," etc. It was only after 
Washington had become, by slow degrees, absolutely sure of 
his ground, that he put forth this Proclamation. Genet was 
then discredited and out of the way, and his successor, Fauchet, 
more than two weeks before (March 6, 1794) had publicly 
and in the most formal and emphatic way disavowed the hostile 
undertaking with reference to Louisiana. If the "famous 
letter" of January 13, 1794, was so disturbing to Washington, 
why did he not issue his Proclamation instantly, instead of 
waiting seven or eight weeks after its arrival to declare him- 
self? 

34 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

The official records show that Washington, at first, did not 
know what ought to be his attitude toward France or toward 
Genet, the representative of France, in view of our treaty rela- 
tions with France, and he proceeded most cautiously, seeking, 
before he acted, not only the individual and joint opinions of 
the four members of his cabinet, but also the opinions of the 
justices of the Supreme Court. Here, in passing, I call atten- 
tion to the fact that the idea of a post at Fort Massac was 
suggested to Wayne as early as May 17th, 1793 (Am. St. Papers, 
2d Ed., Vol. II, p. 49). Dr. Henderson (as well as other 
writers) refers to this as if it were first thought of by the 
President, at the time he issued his Proclamation of March 24, 
1794. "Washington took the additional step," writes Dr. Hen- 
derson, "of directing General Wayne to 'establish a strong mili- 
tary post at Fort Massac on the Ohio.' " etc. 

In his Message of November 15th, 1794, Governor Shelby 
had said: 

"The subject now became serious and interesting, and 
required the most attentive consideration; for although I 
felt no apprehensions that the intended expedition could 
be carried into effect, yet I entertained too high a sense of 
the obligations due to the General Government, to refuse 
the exercise of any powers with which I was clearly in- 
vested. After the most careful examination of the sub- 
ject, I was doubtful whether under the constitution and 
laws of my country, I possessed powers so extensive as 
those which I was called upon to exercise. Thus situated, 
I thought it advisable to write the letter No. 5 (of 13th 
January, 1794), in which all the information I had re- 
ceived is fully detailed, my doubts as to the extent of my 
powers carefully stated, and the strongest assurances given 
that every legal requisition of the General Government 
should, on my part, be punctually complied with. To this 
letter no answer was received until May, 1794; at which 
time No. 6 (Randolph's of March 29th, 1794), came to my 
hands. In the former part of this letter an attempt is 
made to remove the doubts which I had suggested, and to 
prove that I might comply with the instructions of the 
General Government; but prior to the receipt of this letter, 
a bill had been brought before Congress declaring that to 
embark in an enterprise, such as was contemplated by the 
Citizens of this State, should be considered as criminal, 

35 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

and directing what punishment should be inflicted on those 
who should be guilty of such an offense. 

"From the necessity of passing that law, I infer that 
my doubts as to the criminality of the proposed enter- 
prize were well founded, and until the passage of that law, 
the offence had not been declared nor the punishment de- 
fined. But before the receipt of this letter, or the passing 
of the 'Act in addition to the act for the punishment of 
certain crimes against the United States/ the enterprize 
was so far abandoned, as to remove every apprehension of 
its being carried into effect." (Butler, Hist. Ky., Ed. 1836, 
pp. 525, 526.) 

When Shelby transmitted this Message, he was not quite 
forty-four years of age, and in the prime of a vigorous man- 
hood. "Lapse of years" had not clouded either his intellect or 
his memory, nor had intrigue seared his conscience or seduced 
his patriotism. Now, let us see how he expressed himself to 
General Martin D. Hardin, on July 1st, 1812, and judge 
whether he has "clearly fallen into error, after the lapse of 
years." In that letter, he says: 

"There is, to be sure, some inconsistency in my two 
letters to the Secretary of State of the United States and I 
saw it at the time, but at the date of the last (i. e. Jany. 
13, 1794), I saw evidently that the whole scheme of 
Lachaise would fall to the ground without any interference, 
and that the present moment was a favorable one, while 
the apprehensions of the President were greatly excited, 
to express to him what I knew to be the general sentiments 
of the Kentucky people, relative to the navigation of the 
Mississippi and the Spanish Government ; those sentiments 
had often to my knowledge been expressed by way of 
petition and memorial to the general Government, and to 
which no assurance nor any kind of answer had been re- 
ceived, and I feel an entire confidence that my letter of 
the 13th of January, 1794, was the sole cause that pro- 
duced an explanation by the special commissioner. Colonel 
James Innes, of the measures that had been pursued by 
our Government towards obtaining for us the navigation of 
the Mississippi ; and although I felt some regret that I had 
for a moment kept the President uneasy, I was truly grat- 
ified to find that our right to the navigation of that river 
had been well asserted by the President in the negotiations 
carried on at Madrid. * * ♦ 

36 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

"For my own part, I cannot attempt to combat this 
mammoth of shinder (Humphrey Marshall), but he may 
be asked if there was anything like conspiracy in all this 
affair, why he did not make it known sooner? The whole 
correspondence (was) laid before the Legislature on the 
15th of November, 1794, upon a resolution introduced by 
himselj on the 12th of that month ; but perhaps it was he 
himself that prevented any order being taken upon them, 
lest it should have turned out to my advantage, for the 
Legislature, I understood, were well pleased with the part 
I had acted." 

I can discover no "error" here, but an accurate, straight- 
forward rejoinder to the injurious aspersions of Shelby's 
implacable enemy, Humphrey Marshall. He frankly admits 
that there was "some inconsistency" between his two letters to 
Jefferson, but there is no trace of equivocation; no utterance 
that can fairly be characterized as "equivocal" or "dubious 
and equivocal." All men are guilty of occasional "inconsist- 
encies," and this need not be a matter of reproach, but men of 
honesty are seldom betrayed into "equivocal" conduct or 
"equivocal" statements, and duplicity was never a trait of the 
man whose acts are under consideration. The crowning glory 
of Isaac Shelby was his rugged and unwavering honesty, and 
it is not without significance that that able military critic. 
General John Watts DePeyster, in his admirable sketch of the 
Battle or Affair of King's Mountain, has most appropriately 
and with emphasis called him "Honest Shelby." 

Was Governor Shelby warranted in supposing that the 
French Filibuster would collapse, at the date of his second 
letter to Jefferson, on January 13, 1794? We will let Logan 
and Clark, as reported by Michaux, Washington, as disclosed 
by his Message of January 20th, 1794, to Congress, General 
Robert Breckinridge, as shown by his letter to Shelby of Jan- 
uary 10th, 1794, James Brown, as shown by his letter to Shelby 
of February 16, 1794 (as well as by other letters of Brown, 
apparently not preserved, referred to by Shelby in his letter to 
Hardin of July 1, 1812), and John S. Gano, of Cincinnati, who 
was at Lexington and Frankfort for six days and left Lexing- 
ton for Cincinnati on the 8th or 9th of April, 1794, and re- 

37 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

ported "that the expedition of Gen. Clarke, to open the free 
navigation of the Missippi, which had been suspended appar- 
ently for want of money, had again revived," etc. (Am. St. 
Papers, 2d Ed., Vol. 2, p. 54), answer this question. These 
documents will also answer the same question, as applied to 
Shelby's letter to Wayne of February 10th, 1794. I submit 
that it is reasonable to assume that these documents do not 
contain all the evidence upon which Governor Shelby had a 
right to rely in forming his opinion. He was in touch with 
many men throughout the State, and, doubtless, had much else 
to go on. 

Furthermore, it is worthy of note that Washington himself, 
in his message of May 20, 1794, to Congress (Am. St. Papers, 
2d Ed., Vol. 2, pp. 35-36), having Gano's report of April 10th, 
and other similar data, before him, had said: 

"That there was reason to believe that the enterprise, 
projected against the Spanish dominions, was relinquished. 

"But it appears to have been revived upon principles 
which set publick order at defiance, and place the peace of 
the United States in the discretion of unauthorized indi- 
viduals. 

"The means already deposited in the different depart- 
ments of government, are shown by experience not to be 
adequate to these high exigencies, although such of them 
as are lodged in the hands of the Executive shall continue 
to be used with promptness, energy and decision propor- 
tioned to the case. But I am impelled by the position of 
our publick affairs to recommend that provision be made 
for a stronger, and more vigorous opposition than can be 
given to such hostile movements under the laws cls they 
now stand." 

Does not this corroborate Governor Shelby, and can any 
one wonder that Congress should have thought it necessary to 
enact the law of June 5, 1794, which manifestly resulted from 
Shelby's letter of January 13, 1794, and the President's Mes- 
sage of May 20th, 1794? If the language of Washington, in 
the foregoing extracts, followed by the enactment of the law 
of June 5, 1794, does not bear out Governor Shelby's state- 
ment, in his "famous letter" of January 13, 1794, and fully 
sustain his explanation to the Kentucky House of Representa- 

38 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

tives on November 15, 1794, and his later explanation to Gen- 
eral Hardin on July 1, 1812, then I, for one, fail to compre- 
hend the meaning of language. Besides this, I think it helps 
to do away with the humiliating apology, based upon his 
assumed "senility" (at the ripe age of 62), when he was still 
able, more than a year later (in August-October, 1813), most 
vigorously to assemble, command and lead to victory an army 
in the field, and it also disproves his alleged lack of "political 
ability" or "political good sense," as flippantly charged by 
Theodore Roosevelt in his "Winning of the West." Concern- 
ing Governor Shelby's performance in the Thames campaign. 
General William Henry Harrison, then a vigorous youngster, 
reported officially to the Secretary of War: "In communi- 
cating to the President through you, sir, my opinion of the 
conduct of the officers who served under my command, I am 
at a loss how to mention that of Governor Shelby, being con- 
vinced that no eulogium of mine can reach his merit. The 
Governor of an independent State, greatly my superior in 
years, in experience and in military character, he placed him- 
self under my command, and was not more remarkable for his 
zeal and activity than for the promptitude and cheerfulness 
with which he obeyed my orders." * * * 

After passing these facts in review, can any candid man 
doubt that when Governor Shelby, at the commencement of 
his campaign for the governorship in 1812, addressed the "Free- 
men of Kentucky," as recorded at pages 529-531, of Butler's 
History of Kentucky, Edition of 1836, he told the truth, the 
whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Do not the following 
sentences, in that "Address," have the unmistakable ring of 
truth and sincerity and carry conviction: 

"I had my eye upon the preparation for the enterprize, 
and was prepared to stop it if force was requisite. But 
under the full belief that the project would die a natural 
death, and that in the situation in which the public mind 
then was, it was important to abstain from harsh means, 
if possible — that at the period when the preparation were 
said to be in the greatest forwardness, I had a full belief 
that the expedition would fail. I refer to my letter of the 
10th Feb. 1794, to General Wayne, for the correctness of 

39 



* * * Again, in the same dispatch, says General Harrison, "The venerable Governor 
of Kentucky, at the age of sixty-six (63), preserves all the vigor of youth", etc. 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

this opinion. I was not mistaken in my calculations; it 
eventuated as I expected; and I hesitate not to say, had I 
interfered by having any of the persons concerned arrested 
under the civil authority upon suspicion, as the law then 
stood, that it would have excited heat and animosities, and 
in all probability it would have proved abortive; and if 
so, it would have promoted instead of retarding the prep- 
arations. The doubts which I then entertained of the suf- 
ficiency of the laws to reach the case, was the result of 
candid reflection, and the best advice I was able to pro- 
cure only tended to confirm the opinion, that until the 
passage of the law of Congress of the 5th June, 1794, the 
civil authority could not interfere to arrest the prepara- 
tions made with an intention of commencing an enter- 
prize against a neighboring territory — that law was intro- 
duced and passed in consequence of my letter on that 
subject; it was immediately communicated to me by the 
Secretary of State of the U. S. — besides, the want of an 
attorney in the Federal Court, as well as I recollect, put 
it out of my power to adopt the peaceable measures recom- 
mended in the letter of the Secretary." 

In referring to the President's Proclamation of March 24, 
1794 (p. 466, Miss. Valley Hist. Review, Vol. VI, No. 4, March, 
1920), Dr. Henderson seems to intimate that Washington was 
convinced that he could place no dependence upon Governor 
Shelby in the matter of suppressing the threatened expedition. 
That this was not so and that Washington had not lost faith 
in Shelby is established by two circumstances, to-wit: (1) In 
his Message of May 20th, 1794, to Congress, the President 
informed that body that the "enterprise projected against the 
Spanish dominions * * * appears to have been revived;" 
yet (2) the feeling of the Washington Administration toward 
Governor Shelby is unequivocally expressed in a letter from 
the Secretary of War to Governor Shelby, bearing date May 
16th, 1794 (written only four days before the Message to 
Congress), which contains, among other indications of the 
fullest confidence, these statements: 

"The President, confiding in the patriotism and good 
disposition of your Excellency, requests that you will afford 
all the facilities, countenance, and aid in your power to 
the proposed expedition (of Wayne against the Ohio 

40 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

Indians) from which, if successful, the State of Kentucky 
will reap the most abundant advantages. 



"I have conceived it to be my duty to make this com- 
munication and at the same time, in the name and author- 
ity of the President of the United States, to confide to your 
judgment," etc. 

Washington was neither a fool nor a "stuffed prophet," and 
I have a well-grounded suspicion that he trusted Isaac Shelby, 
notwithstanding his "recalcitrant and defiant" letter of Jan- 
uary 13, 1794, even more implicitly than he did some of those 
advisers who were closest about him, or others, more remote, 
who were loudest in their protestations of allegiance. We know, 
at least, what happened in the cases of Edmund Randolph and 
Willie Blount, within a few short years after the Genet episode. 

For my part, I like what Charles Jared Ingersoll, of Phil- 
adelphia, distinguished as a statesman, diplomat and author, 
has to say about the affair in his interesting book of "Recol- 
lections," which appeared in 1861. These are his remarks, in 
part (pp. 22-24) : 

"The French revolution, which began in 1789, had 
made fearful progress in 1793. * * * Shot from that 
volcano, as it were a bomb across the Atlantic, a young, 
well-educated, and accomplished firebrand of a minister, 
Edmund Genet, fell on the United States to embroil them 
in hostilities by sea against Britain, and ashore against 
Spain, by a hostile expedition to take Louisiana; to enlist 
for the former the people of the sea-ports, arm and organ- 
ize for the latter those of the adjacent Southwestern popu- 
lation, to be led to that enterprise by the French Minister 
as their commander. * * * 

"Genet pursued both (designs) with equal ardor and 
boldness; caused troops to be enlisted in South Carolina 
and Georgia, and his commission was accepted by no less 
a Kentucky personage than General George Rogers Clark, 
many, if not most, of the martial people of that enter- 
prising State, just admitted in the Union and hardly recon- 
ciled to its control, excited to arm under the French Min- 
ister's command for the conquest of Louisiana. Such con- 
siderate and respectable patriots as Isaac Shelby, the first 
Governor; Harry Innes, the District Judge of the United 

41 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

States; John Brown and John Breckinridge, afterwards 
Senators of the United States; Thomas Todd, afterwards 
Judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, with 
many more of Kentucky's best men, submitted reluctantly 
to Secretary Jefferson's injunctions, by President Washing- 
ton's directions, laid on Governor Shelby, to prevent war- 
like irreguhirities and arrest their abettors, under the 
French Minister's instigation to organize for conquering 
Louisiana. Still palpitating aversion to England, inherited 
with recent independence, not achieved without treaties, 
armies, navies, and treasures, for which gratitude was due 
to France, were sentiments warming Kentucky hearts, 
which Governor Shelby imbibed at King's Mountain, and 
with his fellow-countrymen in other conflicts, to influence 
their feelings but without destroying their patriotism. 
Nothing could be more loyal than the Governor's answer 
to Secretary Jefferson: 

" 'Whatever be my private opinion as a man, a friend 
to liberty, an American citizen, and an inhabitant of the 
Western waters, I shall at all times hold it to be my duty 
to perform whatever may be constitutionally required of 
me, as Governor of Kentucky, by the President of the 
United States.' " (And see Meigs' Life of Ingersoll.) 

My opinion is that Washington understood the West and 
sympathized with the West. At any rate, he was not to be 
hastily stampeded by unverified rumors of local disaffection. 
In a letter of 22nd December, 1795, from Philadelphia, to 
Gouverneur Morris, then abroad, Washington said: 

"I do not think that Colonel (James) Innes's report 
to the Governor of Kentucky was entirely free from ex- 
ceptions. But let the report be accompanied with the 
following remarks: First, that the one which Lord Gren- 
ville might have seen published was disclaimed by Colonel 
Innes, as soon as it appeared in the public gazettes, on 
account of its incorrectness. Secondly, an irritable spirit at 
that time pervaded all our people at the westward, aris- 
ing from a combination of causes (but from none more 
powerful than the analogous proceedings of Great Britain, 
in the north, to those of Spain, in the south, towards the 
United States and their Indian borderers), which spirit 
required some management and soothing. * * * In a 
government as free as ours, where the people are at liberty 
and will express their sentiments (oftentimes imprudently, 

42 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

and, for want of information, sometimes unjustly), allow- 
ances must be made for occasional effervesences." (Sparks' 
Writings of Washington, Vol. XI, pp. 99-100, 103.) 

I am sorry to see that Dr. Henderson cites McElroy's 
book ("Kentucky in the Nation's History") as an authority. 
Ten years ago, when I first read his chapter on "One Phase of 
the Genet Mission," and encountered the sentence (p. 172) 
referring to Shelby's reply to Jefferson of October 5, 1793, 
"Whether Governor Shelby was perfectly open and honest in 
this statement may be justly questioned," it was with a feeling 
of disappointment, tinged with resentment and disgust. Any 
man who feels that he can "justly" question the "candor" or 
"honesty" of Isaac Shelby is, in my opinion, an utter stranger 
to his true character. The animadversion by McElroy is all 
the more obnoxious to me because it emanated from a Ken- 
tuckian who ought to have known better, or, at least, to have 
expressed his doubts, if he honestly, though mistakenly, enter- 
tained them, in more guarded language. McElroy's book rep- 
resents, I freely admit, a lot of hard work and is a useful com- 
pend, but it is essentially a "re-hash" and scarcely deserves to 
be classed as a product of original or thorough research or a 
first-hand historical contribution, in any sense of the word. 
He is noticeably careless in the chapter to which I have re- 
ferred, in that he makes practically no use of the important 
documents published as Appendices to the second Edition of 
Butler's History of Kentucky,virtually ignores Butler's text, and 
manifests no acquaintance whatever with the "Correspondence 
of Genet and Clark," published by the American Historical 
Association in 1896. If he had ever so much as heard of Fred- 
erick J. Turner's "Origin of Genet's Projected Attack on Louis- 
iana and the Floridas," published in Vol. Ill, of the American 
Historical Review, or the "Documents on the Relations of 
France to Louisiana, 1792-1795," published in the same volume, 
there is nothing to indicate it. The Appendices in Butler, Dr. 
Henderson has used, to some extent, but, as regards Governor 
Shelby's own explanation there found, its effect has, in a meas- 
ure, been neutralized or minimized by comments, some of which, 
in this Review, I have taken leave to criticise. 

43 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

After one gets to know his character, it is always safe to 
rely on Governor Shelby's honesty, truthfulness, fidelity, and 
sound sense, and, after making all due allowance for deficient 
information, or misinformation, slips of memory, and the in- 
roads of advancing age, I think he will be found pretty gen- 
erally accurate. 

In conclusion, I must call attention to the fact that the 
very first question discussed by the Danville Political Club (in 
1786) was the one of pressing and superlative importance to 
the people of Kentucky, namely, "Whether the immediate 
navigation of the Mississippi River will contribute to the in- 
terest of this District or not?" {The Political Club, p. 107, 
Filson Club Pub., No. 9.) 

In 1786, as then reported to the people of Kentucky, a 
proposition had been submitted to the Continental Congress by 
John Jay to cede to Spain the control of the Mississippi for 
twenty-five or thirty years. This caused great excitement and 
unrest. The suggestion of surrendering or bartering away, even 
for a limited term of years, their only practicable commercial 
outlet to the sea was most alarming. A convention was called 
(the ad interim Convention between the Fourth and Fifth of 
the entire series of ten which preceded the attainment of State- 
hood), to meet at Danville in May, 1787, to consider the sub- 
ject. It met but adjourned without action. The long-suffering 
patience of Kentucky on this vital subject is shown by the fact 
that the treaty negotiated by Thomas Pinckney with Spain, 
whereby the right of free navigation of the Mississippi was 
conceded, was not officially published to the country by the 
National administration until 2d August, 1796, a full ten years 
after the subject had first begun seriously to agitate the peo- 
ple of the Kentucky district. (See Spears, Hist. Miss. Valley, 
p. 374.) 

In 1793-94, both the national and state governments were 
still in the experimental or formative stage — neither had 
"found itself." And, to judge the situation accurately, one 
must bear in mind that this Genet business all happened, not 
in the beginning of the twentieth, but in the end of the eigh- 
teenth century, when the federal system was yet in its infancy, \ 

44 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

and State Rights and State Sovereignty (both now apparently 
reduced to a minimum), overshadowed the theoretical suprem- 
acy of the "General Government," as it was then called. Wash- 
ington himself, as I have attempted to point out, was, at first, 
in the dark as to the nature and scope of our treaty obliga- 
tions to France. He repeatedly sought the advice of the four 
members of his Cabinet, individually and collectively, and even 
submitted a list of questions to the members of the Supreme 
Court. It was only by slow degrees that the National Admin- 
istration, as well as the country at large, came to know where 
it stood with reference to the Genet Mission. Apart from his 
indiscreet juvenile zeal and his tactless manners, the capital 
mistake of Genet was in supposing that Congress was sovereign 
and supreme in everything. He played his cards accordingly, 
and lost. 

As late as 1842, fifty years after Genet received his ap- 
pointment as Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States, 
John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, an ex-President of the 
United States and then a member of Congress, had the hardi- 
hood, on behalf of certain of his constituents, to offer to pre- 
sent in the House of Representatives a Petition praying a 
peaceable dissolution of the Union, because of the tolerance of 
slavery, and was severely arraigned for it by Thomas F. Mar- 
shall, of Kentucky, at that time representing the "Ashland" 
District. 

It is right that Isaac Shelby should bear whatever blame 
may be justly attributable to him for his sentiments and con- 
duct, provided judgment is based upon what he actually said 
and did and not upon groundless surmise, malicious slander, or 
bare suspicion. But to one who carefully and impartially 
studies and earnestly strives to understand the situation of all 
the actors concerned, such blame, if any, will not amount to a 
very great deal. More than this, to say, as Roosevelt does, 
with characteristic unfairness, cocksureness and flippancy 
(Winning of the West, Part VI, Chap. II), that Shelby 
"possessed no marked political ability, and was entirely lack- 
ing in the strength of character which would have fitted him 
to put a stop to rebellion and lawlessness" and "did not possess 

45 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

sufficient political good sense to appreciate either the benefits 
of the Central Government or the need of preserving order," 
is not only to fly in the face of the established facts but is to 
contradict, without cause, all that we know and believe of him 
from both authentic history and well-accredited tradition. 

Clark's "freebooting expedition" was not exactly a "colos- 
sal bluff," but rather a "colossal bubble" — a fizzle, a fluke, a 
fiasco. It was, as Henry Lee characterized it, after his first 
enthusiasm had cooled, a "Quixotic adventure." The moun- 
tain labored and brought forth a mouse. And as for the dash- 
ing young diplomat. Genet, all that need be said is that, with 
the ratification and promulgation of the proposed Franco- 
British-American defensive alliance, now awaiting final action 
by the U. S. A., the France of today may realize what her 
revolutionary government claimed of us, in vain, in 1792-1794. 

ADDENDA 

1. Jefferson's letter to Shelby was dated November 6, not 
Nov, 9th; whereas Knox's letter bore the latter date, 
November 9th, 1793, and Jefferson's letter was enclosed 
with it. This is shown correctly in the "Star of Empire" 
but not in the Miss. Valley article (p. 454). 

Knox (Sec'y of War), on the same date (Nov. 9th, 1793) 
wrote Arthur St. Clair, enclosing a copy of Jefferson's 
letter to Shelby. (See Am. St. Papers, 2d Ed., Vol. 2, 
p. 47.) St. Clair did not receive this letter until Decem- 
ber 2d, 1793. Five days later (Dec. 7th, 1793) he issued 
his Proclamation. 

2. With reference to the publication of George RogersClark's 
"Proposals" in the Kentucky Gazette of F.ebruary Sth (not 
4th), 1794, and which were introduced with the words 
"From the Centinel of the Northwestern Territory," at- 
tention is invited to the fact that Arthur St. Clair's Proc- 
lamation of December 7th, 1793, is published immediately 
below the above "Proposals." (See Ky. Gazette, Numb. 
XXI, Vol. VII, Saturday, Sth February, 1794.) 

3. The Resolution referred to (at page 468, Miss. Valley 
Review), as having been adopted by the General Assembly 
of Kentucky on December 20, 1794, was really adopted at 
the legislative session of November-December, 179S, and, 

46 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

of course, nearly a year before Thomas Pinckney was 
commissioned as Envoy to Madrid. The confusion results 
from a reference to this 1793 Resolution in the Resolution 
of November 12, 1794, calling on Governor Shelby for 
"such information as he may have received from the Sen- 
ators of this State in Congress or from any department of 
the General Government, on the subject of the above- 
mentioned resolution," that is, the resolution of 1793. 
(Ms. Journal, House of Reps., of Ky., 1st Session, 3d 
Genl. Assembly, pp. 39-40; Wednesday, Nov. 12, 1794.) 
The Governor's Message of November 15, 1794, resulted. 

The 1st Session of the 2d General Assembly of Ken- 
tucky was held in Frankfort, Ky., from 4th November, 
1793, to 21st December, 1793, both inclusive. The orig- 
inal Ms. Journal of the House of Representatives, at page 
1, opens with this recital: 

"General Assembly begun and held for the State of 
Kentucky, at the house of Andrew Holmes, in the 
Town of Frankfort, on the Kentucky river, on Mon- 
day, the fourth day of November, in the year of our 
Lord, one thousand, seven hundred and ninety-three; 
and in the second year of the Commonwealth," etc. 

Under date of Monday, December 16, 1793, at pages 
145-146, of said House Journal, appears the follow- 
ing: 

"A memorial of sundry Inhabitants of this Com- 
monwealth, whose names are thereunto subscribed, 
was presented and read, setting forth the distressed 
situation, in which an arbitrary and unjust controMl 
by a Foreign power of the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi, has placed the Citizens of this State, the feeble 
attempts, if any, which have been made by the Fed- 
eral Government, to obtain it, the great tendency, 
the want of it has, to throw a damp on the industry 
of the present Inhabitants of our infant Country, to 
prevent the emigration of industrious Citizens from 
other parts, and requesting that the Legislature would 
take such measures, by instructing our Representa- 
tives in the Senate of the United States, and otherwise, 
to obtain the free use and navigation of that River; 
and also require from them, information of the meas- 
ures, if any, which have been taken, by Government 
for that purpose. 

47 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

"Ordered, That the said memorial be referred to 
the Committee of Propositions and grievances, that 
they examine the matter thereof and report the same 
with their opinion thereupon to this House." 

Under date of Friday, December 20th, 1793, at pages 
167-168, of said House Journal, also appears the follow- 
ing: 

"Mr. Crockett from the Committee of Propositions 
and grievances reported that the Committee had, 
according to order, taken into consideration the 
memorial of sundry Inhabitants of this State, respect- 
ing the free navigation of the River Mississippi, and 
come to the following resolution thereupon, which he 
delivered in at the Clerk's table, where it was twice 
read and agreed to by the House: 

"Whereas, it appears to the General Assembly, that 
the free and uninterrupted navigation of the River 
Mississippi, is not only the natural, unalienable right 
of the Citizens of this Commonwealth, but that it 
has been acknowledged so to be by Solemn Treaty, 
and that it is the Duty of the Representatives of the 
People to assert, as much as is in their power, that 
right: 

"Resolved, that the Senators of this State, in Con- 
gress, be and are hereby directed, to assert that right 
to the General Government, and demand an account 
of what measures have been taken, to obtain it, and 
to transmit such information, from time to time, to 
the Executive of this State, as they shall receive. 

"Ordered that Mr. Crockett do carry the said Reso- 
lution to the Senate and desire their concurrence." 

Under date of Friday, December 20th, 1793, at pages 
173-174, of said House Journal, there appears the follow- 
ing entry: 

"A message from the Senate by Mr. Caldwell. 

"Mr. Speaker: 

"The Senate concur in the resolution respecting 
the free navigation of the River Mississippi. 
"And then he withdrew." 

5. The 1st Session of the 3d General Assembly of Ken- 
tucky was held at the Capitol ("Public Buildings"), in 

48 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

the Town of Frankfort, Ky., from 3rd November, 1794, to 
20th December, 1794, both inclusive. 

Under date of Wednesday, November 12, 1794, at pages 
39-40, of the original Ms. Journal of the House of Repre- 
sentatives, appears the following: 

"The house then, according to the standing orders 
of the day, resolved itself into a Committee of the 
Whole house on the State of the Commonwealth. Mr. 
McDowell was elected to the chair and after some 
time spent therein, Mr. Speaker (Robt. Breckinridge) 
resumed the Chair and Mr. McDowell reported that 
the Committee of the whole house has, according to 
order, taken into consideration the State of the Com- 
monwealth, and has come to a resolution thereupon, 
which he delivered in at the Clerk's Table, where it 
was since read and agreed to by the house as follows: 

"Whereas a Resolution passed the General Assem- 
bly at their last session, for instructing the Senators 
of this State, in the Senate of the United States, to 
assert the rights of the Citizens of this Common- 
wealth to the free and uninterrupted navigation of 
the Mississippi, and to demand an account of what 
measures have been taken to obtain it, and to transmit 
such information, as they shall receive, from tinie to 
time, to the Executive of this State, whereof it is 
probable, that the Governor of this State hath before 
this time received communications on this very in- 
teresting subject, Therefore, 

"Resolved that the Governor be requested to lay 
before this house, such information as he may have 
received from the Senators of this State in Congress, 
or from any department of the General Government, 
on the subject of the above mentioned resolution." 

"A message from the Senate by Mr. Johnson. 

"Mr. Speaker: 

"I am directed by the Senate to lay before this 
house sundry letters and papers, containing a corre- 
spondence between the Executive of this State and 
the Secretary of War. Also, an amendment proposed 
by Congress to the Federal Constitution, which have 
been communicated to the Senate by the Governor. — 
And he withdrew. 

"Whereupon the said letters were read and ordered 
to lie on the table," 

49 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

Under date of Saturday, November 15th, 1794, at page 
50, of said House Journal, there appears the following: 

"The Speaker laid before the house a letter from 
the Governor with sundry letters and papers inclosed, 
containing a correspondence between the Executive 
of this State and the Secretary of the United States, 
which were read and ordered to lie on the table." 

Under date of Saturday, December 20th, 1794, it is re- 
corded in said House Journal, near the close thereof on a 
page not numbered, that "The Governor approved and 
signed a Resolution respecting the navigation of the Mis- 
sissippi." But whether this entry has reference to the 
Resolution of December 20th, 1793, or to the Resolution 
of November 12, 1794, is not made clear, though it would 
appear to refer to the former resolution. Why the signing 
of the Resolution had been so long deferred by the Gov- 
ernor is also a matter of uncertainty, unless the formality 
had been inadvertently overlooked. He had certainly acted 
in obedience to the resolution. 

In the Preface to Butler's History of Kentucky, the 
author says: 

"In the complexion of many events, as well as the 
character of most of the early statesmen of Kentucky, 
this work differs from that of Mr. Marshall, wide as 
the poles. The public must determine between him 
and the author. Mr. Marshall enjoyed opportunities 
of contemporary intercourse and observation, which 
the author freely acknowledges have been unrivaled. 
Yet while sagacity and original information are fully 
and sincerely accorded to the primitive historian of 
Kentucky, the author's solemn convictions of histor- 
ical duty extort his protest against the justice and 
impartiality of the representations of his competitors 
in public life. The author painfully feels the com- 
pulsion of making this declaration; much as he re- 
spects the talents and public services of Mr. Mar- 
shall, now silvered with venerable age. Yet he owes 
it to himself, he owes it to that posterity, who may 
feel curious to investigate the conduct of their ances- 
tors, to declare, as he most solemnly does, his convic- 
tion that every man and party of men, who came into 
collision with Mr. Marshall or his friends, in the ex- 
citing and exasperating scenes of Kentucky story, 

50 



Isaac Shelby and the Genet Mission 

have been essentially and profoundly misrepresented 
by him, however unintentionally, and insensibly it 
may have been done. The contentions between this 
gentleman and his competitors for public honors, have 
been too fierce to admit of justice to the character of 
either, in each other's representations. These enmities 
have transformed his history into a border feud, re- 
corded with all the embittered feelings of a chieftain 
of the marches. Yet his picturesque portraits of the 
pioneers of Kentucky, distinct from party influences, 
have ever given the author the utmost delight. 

"But to have been opposed to Mr. H. Marshall in 
the political struggles of Kentucky, seems to have 
entailed on the actors, a sentence of conspiracy, and 
every dishonerable treachery. Our Shelby, Innes, 
Wilkinson, Messrs. John and James Brown, Nicholas, 
Murray, Thomas Todd, and John Breckinridge, have 
been thus unjustly denounced by Mr. Marshall. The 
author of this work, appeals from this sentence of an 
ancient antagonist, to a generation which has arisen, 
free in a great degree, from the excitements of the 
times in question." 

7. The following Commission is owned by and now in the 
possession of William McMillan, Esq., of Paris, Ky., who 
is a grandson of Wm. McMillen, the officer named in the 
Commission, the original of which, in pen and ink, bears 
the well-known autograph of George Rogers Clark. This 
copy was made from the original by Samuel M. Wilson, on 
eth'july, 1920. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK Major General in the 
Armies of France and Commander in chief of the French 
Revolutionary Legion of the Mississippi. 

To William McMillen, Know you that by the special 
confidence &c. reposed in your Courage, Ability, Good 
Conduct & Fidelity ; & by the power Invested in me by 
the Minister of FRANCE, I do appoint you Captain in 
the (Second-?) Battalion of the 2nd Regiment of In- 
fantry to serve in an Expedition designed against the 
Spaniards of Louisiana & Floridas by order of Citizen 
Genet, Minister Plenipotentiary of the French Repub- 
lic. All persons whom it may concern are requested to 
pay due Attention to you as such. 

51 



A Review by Samuel M. Wilson 

Given under my hand at Louisville this ye. 9th day of 
January, 1794, & in the 2nd year of the French Republic; 
One and indivisible. G, R. Clark. 



A similar commission to Captain Henry Lindsay, 
bearing date the 11th January, 1794, is in the Durrett 
Collection (University of Chicago Libraries), and an- 
other to Captain John Cochran, bearing date the 15th 
January, 1794, is in the Draper Collection (State His- 
torical Society of Wisconsin), in the form of a news- 
paper reprint, crediting the original to Colonel R. T. 
Durrett's library, now owned bv Chicago University. 
(See Am. Hist. Assoc. Report, 1896, Vol. 1, pp. 1033- 
1034.) 



52 



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